Liquid crystal display devices are used in various technical fields. In such a device, it is important that the cell gap (the thickness of the liquid crystal layer between a pair of substrates) is uniform within an active area in which images are displayed. A gap spacer is used to form such a cell gap, and in recent years, a press buffer spacer is disposed in addition to the gap spacer to prevent a display quality failure due to external pressure.
In this liquid crystal display device, a structural difference occurs between the active area and the surrounding peripheral area, and because of this structural difference, the evenness of the substrate surface differs between the active area and the peripheral area. For example, the peripheral area includes driving lines necessary to drive pixels in the active area; in addition, there are various circumferential lines such as power lines to bypass the outer power, sensor signal lines electrically connected to sensor electrodes within the active area, and auxiliary lines electrically connected to metal lines used for the low-resistance process of various electrodes such as a transparent electrode.
In this structure, if a spacer having a similar height as the gap spacer disposed within the active area overlaps the outer periphery lines, the cell gap of the peripheral area becomes thicker than the cell gap of the active area. This causes the cell gap to locally thicken at the periphery of the active area, and consequently, the cell gap varies between the center and the periphery of the active area. This cell gap difference may be recognized by blurred display.